Planting in the Ruins
by NiDubhchair
Summary: Captain James Nicholls was left for dead on the field of Quievrechain. After four years, he returns to apologise to the Narracotts and find the wife who seems to have abandoned him. Can he pick up the pieces of a forgotten life? Or will the screams of his dying horse and a letter from his mother-in-law haunt him for the rest of his days? AU. Movie-based. Rated T for brief language.
1. Devonshire Twilight

_****_**Ahoy, people! This story was something that just spilled out of my head last month after reading a lovely little ficlet by thetardisisjawnlocked on Tumblr about Capt. Nicholls saying goodbye to his wife. PM me and I'll try and send you the link to the original story. Wouldn't want to get all the credit for the idea!**

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_**Devonshire, 30 November, 1918 - Evening**_

The sun was setting in blood and fire as a young soldier with an old face crested the hill above the Narracott farm. The Devon landscape was black against the dying light, and for one blink of time the surrounding hillocks took on the aspect of piled corpses to the young man's eyes. He stopped for a moment, telling himself it was just to watch the sunset, but he knew it was mostly to rest his broken, veteran's body. Thirty-two years old and already an invalid and cripple, his ruined lungs, arthritic legs, scarred face, and missing right arm had excited pity, if little charity, from all he had met since he'd touched his native land for the first time in four years just one week before. He still remembered with burning humiliation getting down on all fours with ridiculous Shakespearean romanticism to kiss the ground when he'd left ship, only to have his knees lock and be stuck there like a turtle on its back until a bemused passer-by stopped to help him to his feet.

He was already regretting the decision to walk from town, but there were some habits men of his breeding never lost - no matter how much they might resemble the detritus scraped from the heel of Fate's boot. The cold, excruciating hike was probably in vain – the boy might be gone, or dead like so many others of his generation. He couldn't even be quite sure what exactly he planned on doing there even if the boy was to be found. He could only remember the words of a foolish promise made ages before, words that somehow continued to guide him when it became evident that God wasn't going to allow him a peaceful death on the field of glory. No, he'd always told himself, if Heaven insisted on keeping him around for a useless plaything, he'd be damned if he didn't somehow get back to Devon and explain to Albert Narracott about his horse.

_**France, 15 October, 1914 - Dawn**_

_Captain James Nicholls stroked the neck of his war horse, Joey, and thought of Albert and the tearful parting war had forced between this beautiful animal and its true master. The pennant he had hung from the saddle gathered pollen as he slowly lead the horse through the tall grass behind the German camp. Joey looked at him and whinnied – he wanted to be galloping on a beautiful morning such as this._

"_Patience, Joey. You'll get your run, never fear."_

_Cap. Nicholls rested his head against Joey's neck. He inwardly cursed the lovely morning that would be the last for so many good Englishmen. For so many good Germans for that matter. He cursed Major Stewart and his goddamned pride. He cursed himself, for not knowing how to stop the whole bloody fucking school-boy show._

_Major Stewart's idea of a good war had always been that of a lad at school who never did the reading, but talked like he did. Jabber Jamie, as they'd called him, could wax on and on about serving God and honouring the King, about "dulce et decorum est" and the virtue of Aeneas and the sword of Achilles. As if this morning's battle were another recital in front of Batty Lyttelton's desk. But it was quite obvious he'd never actually wrestled with the Latin & Greek as Nicholls had, had never contemplated the oceans of blood that washed the walls at Troy, that haunted the dreams of Odysseus over the wine-dark sea, and followed Agamemnon home even to the door of his bath. Nicholls had never seen war up close, but he'd done enough reading to know that duty could be cold, and honour terrible, and death in battle beautiful only in hind-sight._

"_I'm sorry, Joey. I'm sorry for what I am about to do. To both of us."_

_**Narracott Farm, 30 November, 1918 - Twilight**_

Rose Narracott's heart began to gallop in her chest when she heard the steps on the front walk, but fell back to normal when whoever it was knocked at the door. Albert would never have knocked. But maybe some news . . .? She hurried to answer it.

"Good day, ma'am," said the ragged, muddied soldier on the stoop, removing his hat. Then he stood there, seemingly unsure what to say next, hat competing awkwardly with his cane for space in his single hand. They were both silent, both somehow assenting in that moment to the fact that he wanted to be standing on a different stoop, and she wanted to be welcoming a different young man.

Rose studied him. His captain's uniform was threadbare and patched, his rank evident by the bare-shapes on his lapel where his officer's insignia should have been. His face, once handsome, was ravaged by a thick red scar that started on one cheek by the mouth and ran all the way back to his ear – the perfect jawline and cheekbone on his left side evidence of what had been lost on his right. But his eyes, though clouded with long pain and weariness, still shone the most hopeful and serene blue Rose had ever seen outside of a morning in May. His thick blonde curls, long in need of a trim, reminded her of Albert.

"I'm, er, sorry to disturb you, ma'am, but –"

"Is it about Albert?" Rose crossed her arms and steeled herself for a blow of pain or joy.

"Well, yes . . ." Her heart sped up. "He isn't . . . here, is he?"

She dropped her arms to the side and took a defeated step back. "No. No, he ain't here. He ran off for the army last year after that horse of his, and we, er, we haven't had a word since." She shrugged and tried to smile. "The boy never was very much good for writing . . ."

"He . . ." A sound that might have been laughter or might have been a sob escaped the stranger's throat. "He . . . joined up . . . to look for his horse?"

"Aye. Albert loved Joey like ne'er a man loved a lady, he did."

The ragged soldier shuddered, his already-pale face losing the rest of its colour. "Damn," he whispered, his cane shaking as he struggled to keep upright on weakening knees.

Rose's disappointment gave way to motherly concern, and she reached forward to steady him. "I'm so sorry for keeping you standing out there in the cold. Won't you please come in? Supper's near done, and I've already got the kettle boiling and you look as if you've been enough on your legs for any man in weather like this."

He cleared his throat and blinked, shaking his head like a man trying to wake from a deep sleep. "Er . . . yes, I . . . I think . . . I apologise . . . I mean, thank you, yes. I'm so sorry to be a nuisance."

Rose smiled. "I've been wishing for a nuisance in uniform to show his face at my door ever since Albert went away."

She took his arm to guide him over the stoop and into the warm kitchen. "You'll do, for now."


	2. No Word from England

_**France, 15 October, 1914 – Morning**_

_He couldn't move. He couldn't see. Blood filled his mouth as soon as he could cough it up, threatening to choke him. One moment he had realised that the grandiose sweep of cavalry was driving Joey toward the arachnid eyes of innumerable machine guns, the next a fiery wind had swept him from the saddle. He had closed his eyes, raised his sword, pleaded for the strength to die, tried to remember Jane's face, tried to imagine the laughter of his unborn children. He endeavoured to compress all he had ever desired into that one second, like a little boy called to bed who must run one more lap around the garden before assenting to the call. But after the fire the seconds inexplicably continued, the garden burned around him, and horror grew with each hard-drawn breath._

_Everything on his right side felt as if it were being crushed, shredded by a mountain of glass shards. The taste of blood and bile mixed in his throat. His eyesight was a red haze. Perhaps worse than the sound of his own choking gasps was the silence around him, punctuated only by the cries of dying men and suffering horses. Was that Joey's body holding his feet to the ground? A horse next to him gave a bone-chilling shriek. His own slow death, trickling away over a field in France, he could perhaps endure. But the sound of a dying horse is the sound of hell. His hand instinctively felt for his revolver – he had to give the ruined animal one last mercy. For Joey's sake. For Albert's sake._

"I promise you man to man I'll look after him as closely as you have done." _He heard his own voice in his ears as if a phonograph were playing it. The promise made – could it have been only a few months before? – had to be kept. But his right hand wouldn't move, and when his left hand fumbled at his holster it was empty. He screamed in frustration, joining his own agony with that of the horses around him._

"_GOD. OH, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, PLEASE, WON'T SOMEONE SHOOT THEM. END THIS. SHOOT THEM, _BITTE. SHEIßEN DIE PFERDE! UM GOTTES WILLEN. BITTE. _PLEASE . . . GOD!"_

_He screamed, tears washing the blood from his eyes, until his voice was a broken whisper. Then he heard them – the merciful crack of rifles. Second by second, the field grew quiet. A shadow came between him and the blue-gold sky. He prayed it had come to shoot him too, but instead it knelt, and lifted his head, and poured something horrible from a flask between his lips._

Schnell, Hans! Gib mir deinen Gürtel! Jetzt! Beeilen Sie sich! Binden es hier! Ja, so. Jetzt, Informieren Sie den Arzt gibt es einen Offizier noch am Leben . . . _Nicholls could feel his breath grow weaker. His Eton blood was finally giving out. He closed his eyes, and prayed that Albert would forgive him._

_The sun had burned the midday sky white-hot before the mangled body of Captain James Nicholls was carried from the stricken field to the hospital wagons. His right hand was buried in a pit with the bodies of the horses who had died beside him._

_**Narracott Farm, 30 November, 1918 – Late Evening**_

Capt. Nicholls had greedily sucked down four cups of tea and consumed half a plate of biscuits before he realized what a horrific barbarian he must seem to his hostess. He put his fifth cup back down on the table, but not without a plaintive look at its contents.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Narracott. You must think me a beastly yob. Forgive my carelessness – I know things are rationed these days. Truth is I haven't had a proper British set of tea and biscuits since 1914."

She pushed the plate of biscuits closer to him. "Well, then, I'm glad that Albert was the only one around here to who really cared for these things. What exactly brings you to our doorstep, Captain?"

Nicholls took another biscuit but didn't eat it, absentmindedly turning it over his fingers like a coin. "I came about Joey. My . . . well, Albert's horse."

"You haven't – you haven't brought him back, have you?" The hope in her voice felt like a bayonet in his chest.

"No. I'm sorry, Mrs. Narracott, but . . . Joey died . . . died next to me at the Battle of Quievrechain in 1914. I'm not sure why I thought coming to apologise in person would make anything better. Now the knowledge that Albert rode off to war searching for Joey . . . has made it all the worse, I'm afraid. Do pardon me, but . . ." His voiced dropped to a whisper, "Damn this war."

He looked down, realising he had crushed the biscuit into crumbs. He flushed, deposited the crumbs onto the plate and pushed himself painfully to his feet. "I'm so sorry to have disturbed you, Mrs. Narracott. Thank you for the tea. I do hope you hear from Albert soon."

Rose Narracott moved from the stove and deposited herself firmly between Nicholls and the door. "You can't seriously think I'd let a slip of a veteran like you out into a Devonshire night like this to make his own way who-knows-where? You're staying for supper, and then we'll put you in Albert's room, and if this wind's died down by 'morrow morning, then, perhaps, I'll set you on your merry way but _not_ before!"

"I don't want to be a –"

"Not another word, Captain. You've a kind heart, to come all this way over a horse, and I'll insist on your letting us offer this kindness in return. Now come back over here and finish this tea."

Nicholls let her guide him back to the table. "Is your husband at home? I don't want . . . er . . . I wouldn't want the neighbors . . ."

Rose laughed. "Mr. Narracott's been taking his supper at the pub more often than not these past few evenings. Says he gets better news there. He'll be along in time to eat your left-overs." She tasted the stew bubbling on the stove and threw-in a few of the herbs hung to dry above the kitchen window. "Now, you say you've been in France since 1914? Not one holiday back home?"

Nicholls smiled grimly. "Well, some might consider a relaxing four-year stay in a German prison-camp a holiday, but I must say I was never more glad for good, hard, English work than during my walk through Devonshire this afternoon."

"Four years?! But surely they would have exchanged an officer like yourself years before that! And you wounded and all!"

"Ehehe – you would think." He took a steadying sip from his half-cooled cup of tea. "The problem, Mrs. Narracott, with the War Office is that it runs very efficiently, but never more-so than when it makes a mistake. Then events must be very efficiently covered over and explained away and forgotten altogether so that next-year's promotions can be made! Some men do manage to . . . fall through the cracks."

"What a shame! But surely your family must have made some kind of fuss!"

"Yes, indeed . . . if I had one. But my father was killed in a lorry accident a month after I left home . . . and my wife . . ." The tea-cup trembled against the saucer as he put it back down. "My wife was sent a telegram informing her of my death in battle. My letters were not forwarded. And I received word just one month ago that she has . . . since remarried."

"But why on earth wouldn't your letters be –"

The door opened, revealing a wind-blown farmer in a heavy leather overcoat. Ted Narracott turned ale-reddened eyes to his wife, not seeming to notice her visitor.

"Well, Wilf says no more stout for me 'til me bar tabs paid, so looks like you're stuck feedin' me gob 'til –"

He stopped when he noticed Nicholls, his eyes widening in near-instant recognition. "You!" He rushed at the soldier, face purple with sudden rage.

"You and your highborn knight-and-armor ways, think you can come and take food from my Rose's mouth after what ye've done to me an' mine!?" He grabbed an un-resisting Nicholls by the collar and shook him. The captain's tea-cup crashed to the floor. "30 guineas fer as fine an 'orse as tha' t'were? An' me only son run off to die in the trenches after 'im like 'e were chasin' rainbows.! Ye dare show yer face 'ere?!"

Rose Narracott grabbed her husband by the shoulder. "Ted Narracott you take your hands off him this instant! I'm _ashamed_ of you."

Ted dropped Nicholls' collar, pushing him back against the table as he did so. "I won't 'ave 'im in the 'ouse, Rose! 'E's 'ighborn an' don't need our charity and after what 'e's caused . . . I won't 'ave it!"

Captain Nicholls bent to retrieve his hat from the floor and placed it squarely on his head. "Do forgive me," he said softly, with a bow towards Mrs. Narracott, "I seem to have overstayed my welcome – I won't trouble you any longer. I'm so very, very sorry to have caused this family pain – and I hope you may permit me to pay for the teacup."

"Oh, no you don't, Captain, don't you move an inch towards that door. Ted Narracott, how could you be such a mean, heartless . . ." Her teeth ground around all the words she wouldn't permit herself to say. She stamped her boot on the stone floor, "This is MY kitchen and this house was _my_ dowry, and I'll do as I please in it and have to supper _whoever _I care to, and _woe to anyone who'll say me nay._"

She stood nose-to-nose with her husband, and Nicholls couldn't help but smile privately at the way her tall, farmwife frame seemed to dwarf him. "Here he's walked all this way on a bad knee in a Devon November to tell us about Joey, to apologise to Albert like a right and proper gentleman, and all you have fer him is hard words? How can you call yerself a right and Christian man, Narracott, _how can ye?_"

Ted Narracott put his hat back on his head and stalked out the front door, slamming it behind him.

_**Mentz Prison Camp, 4 June, 1915 – Midday**_

_7 months. 7 months and 19 days since he'd been captured and not a word from home, official or otherwise. It had been 4 months since he'd been released from the Critical Ward in the Prison Hospital. 4 months and 32 letters home, which the Goethe-loving camp commander always took with a jolly wink, promising to post them with the Red Cross at every opportunity. Still nothing. In his condition he was no good for work-details, so his days were reduced to letter-writing and hobbling around the prison yard, trying to put strength back into his ruined knee._

_Nicholls' best guess for how he managed to survive Quievrechain was nothing more miraculous than the machine gun using up its clip or jamming just as it swept across his body from right to left. The bullets had shredded his right arm up to the elbow, necessitating its amputation. Others had lodged in his knee, shoulder and lung, and one had ripped through his cheek and broken his jaw. For months he had lingered, perfectly balanced between the white-walled, German-accented world and a golden dream where he rode Joey across the Downs towards an endless sunset. He still wasn't sure if he was glad that German ingenuity had prevailed over his English body's determination to take him to Arthur's Bosom. All his dreams of renewing his father's dwindling estate with the sweat of his own brow, of pursuing his art, of holding both his twins in his arms after their birth, of teaching them to hunt and ride and draw – it was all dust in the mustard-tinged wind. Even when he could get home to Jane, it would be as a cripple to be cared for instead of as a husband to provide._

_Still, the very thought of her momentarily chased away his disappointment and his fear. How could he be sad when such a woman breathed on earth, woke every morning in his house, called herself by his name? Her perfect eyes, heart-shaped face, sensible mouth . . . neck and shoulders and breasts as white and smooth as swans' down. The memory of her voice was balm to his aching leg and laboring chest. What had she said, so many months before, on their last day together?_

" . . . She will have your blue eyes. And her brother will have your fair hair. You have seven months to come back to us."

_7 months and 19 days. He was a father by now. And still no words came from England to sooth his aching soul._


	3. Eternally Making Amends

_**Narracott Farm, 30 November, 1918 – Night**_

The wind's teeth gnawed at his threadbare coat as Nicholls limped towards the Narracott barn. As awkward as he seemed to have inadvertently made the family situation, he was glad he let Rose prevail. The cold would surely have destroyed what little health was left in his lungs if he had walked back to Sheepstor after dark. Rose had shown him up to Albert's bedroom after supper and lit a cozy fire in the long-neglected grate, but when she'd closed the door behind her Nicholls was chilled to see a pencil-portrait of Joey, framed and hung on the back of the door. A cursory glance over the room revealed Albert's other artistic attempts – some sketches of barns and hills, but mostly of the beautiful horse at the plow, or galloping down Sheepstor road. Yet the drawings unlocked no happy memories for Nicholls - only the visceral sound of a horse's death screams. Somehow the sound – of innocence abandoned in helpless agony - seemed to encapsulate everything wrong with Nicholls' world. Before he could really understand what he intended to do or say or why, he found himself trudging through the cold, determined to somehow make-it-up with Ted Narracott.

The farmer was sitting in a circle of orange lantern light in the doorway of an empty stall, smoking a pipe and taking swigs off a dusty-necked bottle of Scotch. For a moment they were both silent, Ted's eyes acknowledging him through the rings of pipe-smoke. Then he held out the bottle.

"Sorry I 'twere so rough earlier. Me old wound pains me a good bit in weather like this – me temper's apt to be short-like when its cold."

Nicholls took a swig of the Scotch and then lifted the bottle. "Well, then, here stand two men bearing the reminders of what happens when one ignores the fine-print on the recruitment posters: 'Be Their Hero! Join the Army! Be Bloody Uncomfortable for the Rest of your Natural Days!"

Narracott smiled briefly. "Ha! Ye haven' known bloody uncomfortable 'til ye've sat in a Boer-made 'otbox for a week! France – what a holiday! Try Rhodesia - my skin baked like a meat pie!"

Nicholls took another sip of Scotch and winked. "Obviously, you've never tried vomiting with your jaw wired shut."

Both men put back their heads and roared with laughter, caught in a sudden companionship of shared pain. Then Narracott seemed to remember who he was laughing with and stopped, taking the bottle back with a frown. Nicholls leaned back against a stall-gate and rubbed his knee. Both were silent.

"You have every right to be angry with me," said the young man, finally. "It's my fault Joey's gone. That Albert's gone. I wish there were something more I could say, besides 'Forgive me.'"

"'There's not. No good pretendin' that words make much difference one way or t'other. Maybe I partly seen that earlier an' that's what set me off."

"How do you mean?"

Narracott didn't answer right away. He took another swig and stared hard at the long-abandoned bed of hay beside him. Nicholls just stood there, watching the pipe smoke rise gracefully to the ceiling, until his knee forced him to find a seat on an upturned washtub next to the farmer.

"'Ow many 'orses died in the battle that took Joey, Captain?"

"Some dozens, I should think."

"And 'ow many men?"

Nicholls took a deep breath, plying his long fingers up and down his cane as if it were an abacus.

"Hundreds."

"So 'ow many doors will you 'ave to knock on, Captain? 'Afore it's made right? Even if I _could_ forgive you for the one 'orse, the one boy . . . they're only the first names on a long list you'll carry wit' ye 'til they put ye in the ground." He gave a short, hound's-bark of a laugh. "Ye can thank yer angels that ye _were_ ripped to uselessness in yer first real battle. Yer list will be much shorter than mine."

Both men withdrew into their own minds for a time. Narracott was right, Nicholls thought – maybe that _was_ why he'd been so strongly drawn to come there. He wanted forever to Make Amends, to live at peace with the world and with all men. But maybe that was impossible.

"Does any of this . . . ever get any easier?"

"It gets quieter. The burden grows into yer bones . . . and ye learn to live with it beside ye. But no, it doesn't get _easier._"

"Then why even . . . what if one can't . . ." Nicholls took off his hat and threw it to the ground in frustration. "Dammit, Narracott – are we to live as ruined men forever?"

"If ye want to live, Nicholls, ye have to plant _in_ the ruins." He put the bottle down and grasped the captain by the shoulder. "You listen well, young man, because I've been saving these words fer Albert's hearin' and if I can't 'elp 'im with 'em, I'll bloody-well teach you." His voice dropped to such a low whisper Nicholl's could barely hear it over the wind. "Ye look for the most beautiful thing in yer life, and ye make it yer own, and ye keep it _at all costs._ Ye must keep it. Ye need somethin' worth 'oldin' on to in the dark nights. That's what Rose is fer me, an' this farm, an' Albert was, an' Joey was. An' if ye don't 'ave it, or ye lose it – God 'elp ye."

"Well, then," said Nicholls with a long, sad sigh. "God help me."

_**Dunkirk Prisoner Repatriation Camp, 30 October, 1918 – Evening**_

_The sea was the colour of Jane's eyes. How could it have been four years since they last saw each other – and still she haunted the world around him as if she had died yesterday? Not that he was sure she was dead – but what else would explain the years of silence? His abandonment to the camps?_

"So sorry, old boy," _the representative from the War Office had told him that morning._ "You were reported dead, and no one ever came looking for you. You know how it can be. Now, if you'll just fill in forms 36a and 40f we can get you back to the world and on a ship back home . . ."

_An accident, perhaps? Or that cursed influenza? Nicholls himself had suffered a bout of it earlier that year and it had nearly killed him - half the prisoners at Mentz had come down with it, and a tenth had died. He shuddered to think of her suffering like that. He prayed that it had taken her quickly. But what of the twins? Had they succumbed too?_

_The questions had tortured him for four years. Yet still he stood on the empty dock overlooking the channel, refusing to open the letter in his hand. He wasn't sure he wanted to know what the answers were._

_It was posted from Jane's home town, and the handwriting was her mother's. He had always thought her a cold, wearisome social-climber, and she certainly hadn't been happy the artistic son of a penniless southern Baronet had married her daughter. Why would she finally write after four years? What had kept her before? More questions . . . and there would be no answers until he opened that bloody letter. He ripped it open, shook the envelope free, and forced himself to look down at the rose-coloured paper._

Captain Nicholls,

Having just been informed by the War Office that you have, in fact, been exchanged and will be returning to England, I thought it my duty to communicate the following facts to you. My daughter was informed of your supposed death in October, 1914. You may or may not have heard, but your father was killed in a lorry accident that same month. Jane was always a very sensitive girl, as you know, and took it very hard. I must say I spent a good many thankless nights nursing her through it so she wouldn't harm herself or the children. I am happy to report the twins, James and Rose, arrived safely on 24 March, 1915. Through no small effort of mine, all are healthy and well.

Since you did not deem to write until August 1915 –

_The damned Red Cross must have delayed the mail, Nicholls thought, crumpling the letter in his hand. Damn them. Damn his wounds. Damn that woman's presumption. Damn. Damn. Damn. He straightened out the letter as well as he could in his one hand and continued to read through his increasing tears._

- I encouraged my daughter and my grandchildren to move on. Jane started walking out with Everett Hiddleston in July of that year. They had always been very good friends, and I was, I am not ashamed to admit, quite happy to see she had come to her senses and ended up with someone solid and respectable. When your letters arrived in August, I did not deem that it would be healthy for her to break off such a connection on the dim hope that you, an invalid and prisoner, would survive to claim her. I destroyed your subsequent letters. Though some might find reason to blame me, I know I acted with a keen interest for my daughter's welfare and I feel no guilt in the matter.

Everett and Jane married in January, 1916. Little Walton was born in September of that year. Everett has opened a practice here in Stanhope, and they are as content a family as ever I saw.

I suppose you have the right to do whatever you please now – heaven knows your sort always do – but I hope this letter may cause you to pause and consider what the consequences might be of your sudden return from the dead.

I hope all is well with you, under the circumstances.

Sincerely,

Clara Stanely-Cross

_Nicholls felt like a dozen brand-new bullet wounds had opened in his chest. His legs gave out and he sank to the boards of the dock. He crumpled the letter and threw it into the sea, but the waves couldn't wash the words from his mind. Everett Hiddleston – that pudgy attorney? He supposed he was alright, in his solid, Northern way. He supposed he couldn't blame Jane for having a stone-cold witch for a mother._

_They were happy. They had a child together. Everett was steady. A hard worker. A good man. He had given her years, now, of love and care. And Jane deserved that. She didn't deserve a frustrated, guilt-ridden, nightmare-plagued cripple standing at her door, expecting to be taken back just because they had shared 3 months of bliss together. All of the captains' fragile hopes and expectations, so carefully nursed through four years under dreary German skies, shriveled in a matter of minutes like a too-green herb left in the sun. He pounded his fist into the splintered, nail-studded edge of the dock until his knuckles bled._

"_Careful," said a voice behind him. "You only have one of those now."_

_Nicholls turned to see a uniformed man in a wheelchair. It took him a few moments to see past the haggard, sunken face and recognize Major Jamie Stewart – the officer that had ordered the fatal cavalry charge that had killed Joey and left Nicholls a ravaged shadow. He was wearing the same blue parade-dress uniform that Nicholls remembered from their days of horse-racing and bets and bawdy stories told over 2-pence beer. But his body no longer filled it out, and it hung around him like a child's play-coat. Both of his legs had been amputated above the knee. Nicholls nodded at him, trying to smile._

"_Major. Nice to see one of the old boys survive this bloody mess."_

"_Captain. Someone at mess this morning told me you were here. I had to come and see for myself." He shook his head, giving that familiar, debonair smile that had made Major Stewart the object of every lady's attention from Plymouth to Newcastle. At least the war had still left him his handsome face. "I took you for dead years ago. I saw you go down at Quievrechain. I wrote your wife. How'd you do it, old chap?"_

"_I didn't do anything. But there's little a stubborn German can't accomplish when he puts his mind to it. What about you? I assume you were captured that day – is that when they took the legs?"_

"_No, no. I've got a bit of a reputation now. Escaped back to our lines twice before the war was over. The third time they got me I was sent to Ingolstadt. Put me to work in a munitions factory. 'Course our side bombed it to smithereens early this year, and my legs were severed by a falling beam. I suppose General Greenock was sick of competing with my pretty face in the lines, wot?"_

_Nicholls didn't laugh along with him. The sound of it had brought back the memory of that race, so many years before – Joey beneath him, a letter from Jane tucked lovingly into his pocket, the grass and sky shining like stained-glass. The bright light of the memory made his clouded thoughts ache._

"_I say," said the Major, "I wonder whatever happened to those horses of ours . . . Such fine creatures. I know they captured Topthorn at Quievrechain. Poor devil."_

"_Joey died beside me. They shot him. Put him out of his misery. There's a boy in Devon I'm going to have to explain that to."_

"_Well, I suppose it's better than some alternatives. I imagine they worked sorry old Topthorn to death. I saw how they treated horses in the trenches."_

"_And how they treated the men. How many of them did we _war_ to death or ruin in the end?"_

_The two crippled officers looked quietly out to sea, but they did not hear the waves. Instead they heard the crash of a million ruined lives making their way back on the tide to England._

_**Narracott Farm, 7 December, 1918 – Sunset**_

"But they're _your_ children, Captain!" Rose Narracott grabbed Nicholls' empty dinner plate and dropped it in the sink, consternation playing on her features. "They've a right to know their real father!"

"_Real_ father, Rose? I merely provided the apparatus. I'm sure the man who's _actually been raising_ them is doing an entirely satisfactory job . . . It would be selfish of me to break it up for 'old time's sake.'"

Nicholls looked over at Ted Narracott, hoping he might provide some aid, but the farmer just winked at him over his tea cup. Rose had been pressing the issue ever since he had explained the situation; and ever since then she'd kept coming up with excuses to keep him on the farm. Some menial chore that Ted needed help with, some project around the house that a one-handed man could conceivably manage. Even projects that he _couldn't_ conceivably manage she got him to try – sweeping out stables and repairing kitchen oddments and milking the cow. It was like a game they played – Nicholls trying his luck at the Sisyphean tasks because he felt he owed her for the hospitality and to take her mind off of Albert, and Rose giving him work to somehow convince him of his worth. It was kind of her to attempt it, he thought, though he was fairly certain he was one broken tea-cup away from being banished from kitchen chores forever.

"Come, Rose, let the gentleman do as 'e likes," said Ted. "The only concern I'd have is for the legality of the thing. I mean, ye've some property, an' if yer goin' to be a damn stubborn mule about the business than you'd better get a good lawyer and make fer damn sure there's no funny business in the entail when ye pop off. Yer children deserve that from ye, at the least."

Nicholls sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. He hadn't yet thought of that. He wanted to be able to provide for his children while he was still alive. But could he do that and still remain completely anonymous?

"Think how impossible it'd be," said Rose. "Keepin' yerself hidden all them years! One mention of ye in a newspaper and her whole world comes crashin' in around her! Or yer twins get curious an' come lookin' fer their 'mysterious benefactor.' That sort o' thing never worked in Dickens and I doubt yer _half_ as sneaky as Magwitch were. No, mark me, the only thing for it is to march straight to –"

A sharp rap at the door interrupted the determined housewife. Ted went to answer it. A village lad that seemed all hat and boots held out an envelope as soon as the door opened.

"Fer you, sir. Me dad said soon 'as he saw it you'd want it right quick! It's from France, Mr. Narracott."

Rose stood up slowly, gripping the edge of the table with white-knuckled hands. Ted just stood there, turning the envelope over and over without opening it. Nicholls stood up too, though more from the sudden sensation he was going to be sick. He quickly left the kitchen and ran up to Albert's bare, beloved attic room, hating that he was there at all. "What did you think would happen," he sighed to himself, leaning his head against the cool window pane and pondering the far figure of a man leading a horse over the Downs from the village. "Thought this farce could go on forever? That you could go on being a surrogate son and they'd never have to be reminded what happened to . . . to . . ."

Downstairs, Rose screamed. The screams turned to sobs that seemed the shake the beams of the house to their ancient marrow. Nicholls pounded his forehead against the window-glass, then spun around and started throwing the small amount of clothes he had brought with him back into their satchel. Maybe he could leave through the back. Maybe in their grief they wouldn't miss him. He could be nothing but a half-forgotten shadow in the darkness of their future life. But he knew that they could never be nothing to him. He knew that the sound of Rose's scream would join that of Joey's at Quievrechain, both haunting his nightmares until Judgement Day brought their accusation before the face of God . . .

He slung the satchel over his shoulder and headed for the back-stairs, only to be met by Rose. She stood at the bottom of the stair, tears streaming down her face. But she was smiling.

"Oh, Captain, oh, Captain Nicholls! It was a letter from Albert! He's comin' home!"

His interior tension snapped like a bowstring, and he collapsed, sitting down suddenly at the top of the stairs.

"Oh, Lord, Captain, did you think he'd – Oh, Lord, forgive me, yer white as a sheet! Sure and Mr. Narracott's broken-out last summer's elderberry wine – do come down and have some, for sure it'll do ye good! Jesu, take a breath, sir!"

All of the sudden he was laughing, even while tears streamed down his face. _One name off the list. One name, but it might be enough._ _It might be enough._ She climbed the stair and took his hand. Tears were flowing freely from her eyes as well as she leaned down and kissed him on top of the head.

"Do forgive me," he choked out, trying to draw himself back together. "Happiness unexpected can be quite as overwhelming as grief."

"Just you come down and take some wine. We've reason to expect he'll be here by dark – the telegram was late in the mail. There's no telegraph office in Sheepstor, see . ."

It was only a half-hour later, after Rose had gone out to dig some potatoes before night fell, when Nicholls heard Ted Narracott call. He went to the kitchen window. The sky was engulfed in a flaming sunset, and the clouds hung like scrolls of kindled paper above the moor – the very air seemed flooded with the red blood of woken hope. He watched Rose drop her spade and climb the fence, hurrying to join Ted as he limped across a fallow field towards the approaching figure of a man and a horse.

Nicholls went outside, but no further than the fence. This reunion wasn't his, and happy as he was that the Narracotts' joy had been restored, he knew that this meant it was assuredly time for him to move on. He would give Albert back his room and life and go on to face his own troubles like a man – instead of hiding like a child in its mothers' attic.

The Narracotts stayed in the field in a long embrace until it was almost too dark to see. The sky was a lavender tapestry pricked with stars when they finally turned together towards the cottage. Albert looked hale, Nicholls was glad to see, though the scars around his eyes betrayed mustard gas exposure. He was curious about the horse – it was a beautiful animal, too beautiful for a returning veteran to afford. It had the gait of an old war horse, but still its flanks and back shone with health and good care. As they grew closer through the twilight, the lights of the cottage revealed a white star on its forehead, and four white socks on its legs.

Joey.

No, it couldn't be. Surely . . .

"Look, Captain!" called Rose once she was close enough to be heard over the wind. "Not one sparrow is forgotten 'afore our Father, and not one 'orse neither! It's Joey, Captain! Albert found him!"

"Captain Nicholls, sir!" said Albert. "We thought you were dead!"

Nicholls' sight was blurred by tears, but he bit his lip, tucked his cane under his arm and limped forward to shake Albert by the hand.

"I thought I was dead, too. You have . . . no idea how happy, how grateful I am to see you well."

Alfred just looked him in the eye and smiled, and all the tumbling apologies Nicholls had planned died on his lips. With a nod and a squeeze of the hand, everything that needed to be said was said.

Joey seemed to recognize him, walking forward and nuzzling his shoulder with a whinny of greeting. They stood together for a while, forehead to forehead, Nicholls stroking the horse's neck and whispering things the Narracotts did not strain to hear. He took in the horse's scent in deep, shuddering breaths like a man revived after drowning. Then he seemed to remember where he was. He looked up at his quiet audience.

"This night has taught me how to hope in ways I never looked for," said Captain Nicholls. "Mrs. Narracott, I shall be leaving in the morning. I think it's about time I went to look for my wife."


	4. Sun Meeting Sky

_**Stanhope, County Durham, 23 December 1918**_

He had gone home to Surrey first, to speak with his attorney about properties and annulments, but mostly to gather his courage together. He did not expect the universe would grant another miracle so soon after the last, so he hung about the drafty halls of his father's house for weeks, smoking a good deal and rehearsing what he would say to Jane and Mr. Hiddleston about the whole sticky mess. He would leave the final decision up to her, and he planned on giving her a good long time to decide. She could either divorce Everett and come back with him, or they could go along quietly down to register and have the whole thing annulled. He was determined not to interfere. If she chose Hiddleston, he would leave her with promises of support for his children, and try and pick up his life the best way he could.

Maybe he could raise horses, he thought, leaning his head against the window of the train as it passed through the snow-frosted fields of County Durham. Or learn how to paint left-handed. He found himself absent-mindedly sketching on a piece of newsprint he'd found stuck in-between the seats. The result looked more like a long-legged goat than a horse, he thought as he tucked the newsprint into his pocket, but one had to start somewhere.

* * *

Nicholls swore to himself that Stanhope hadn't had nearly this many hills when he had last visited. The negligible climb from the railway station to Front Street had taken him over half-an-hour. Now there he stood, staring at his scarred, winded face in the front-glass of Hiddleston, Hodgeson & Angus, wishing he could present a stronger front to Everett than that of an exhausted cripple.

A young man poked his head out of the door. "If you're looking for charity, sir, Mrs. Hiddleston up on the next corner keeps her kitchen door open after 3."

Just like Jane. Nicholls smiled and tried to summon the Captain in him that had lain dormant so many years. "No, thank you, young man - but I'm actually here looking for Mr. Hiddleston. Is he in?"

"Oh. No sir, I'm sorry, sir. If you had any unfinished business with Mr. Hiddleston, will you please come in and Mr. Angus will see to you."

"Is Mr. Hiddleston no longer employed here?"

"No, sir. I'm very sorry sir, but Mr. Hiddleston was buried yesterday afternoon. The Influenza took him last week."

* * *

Nicholls had spent the last hour pacing up and down the road like a madman, from the attorney's office on one corner to Jane's house on the other, his mind scrambling to grasp what his next move might be. Surely it was only a matter of time before someone called a constable – he thought he must look like the maddest homeless veteran this side of Bedlam.

Everett's death changed everything. That is, changed everything except the one thing that really mattered – Jane's heart. How could he approach her now, twice widowed, twice bereaved, and make to pick up every shattered piece? He couldn't gather _himself_ together much less the family he'd never even met.

Yet, there she was. Alone. Broken. Broken and so, so beautiful. She needed him. Could a love four-years dead be brought to life? He would never know the answer unless he knocked on the door. His crooked steps made it to the edge of the stoop, then stopped. Three children and only one week a widow. Surely her mother had to be there with her. That threw a wrench in things. The ghost of his marriage he might confront, but the spectre of his mother-in-law sent a chill through his limbs.

The curtains in the front bay-window stirred, then were drawn back suddenly by a tiny hand. A tiny hand belonging to a toddler in a crisp, white frock. There, kneeling on the window seat, was a little girl with a heart-shaped face and bronzed-brown curls. Blue eyes. Porcelain-doll lips parted in a perfect "o" of surprise. Their identical eyes met and held each other, and then his daughter smiled at him. Nicholls wouldn't have moved from that spot had an entire German tank division been shooting at him. The little girl pointed at him, tapping at the glass.

A young woman came to the window in a rumpled black dress, her hair carelessly braided, ruby lips and tear-streaked eyes standing out from her too-pale face. Nicholls gripped his cane until he thought his fingers might crack, then looked up from his daughter's face and into his wife's eyes.

Jane fainted.

Jim Nicholls didn't think. He didn't consider. And he didn't knock. He shoved his way in, skidding on the hall rug and knocking over the umbrella stand on his way to the front parlour. Jane was on the floor, face white but breathing soft and slowly. The little girl and a little boy her same size and colouring stood holding hands and looking down at her, chins quivering, un-spilled tears trembling on their eyelashes. They took a step back and began to cry in earnest as he dropped his cane and knelt down beside her.

Jim put his hand on her shoulder and shook gently. "Jane? Jane, darling?" When she didn't respond he reached into his jacket and pulled out a flask. He spilled some onto his finger and put the finger to her lips. Jane's eyelids fluttered and she turned her head towards the sound of the crying twins. Jim looked up and held out a hand to them.

"Rose? And Jimmy? Rosey, will you and Jimmy come over here? Mummy needs to know you're alright."

"What's wrong wif Mummy?!" wailed Rose. "You're a stranger!"

"NO STRANGERS ALLOWED!" shouted Jimmy.

"I'm not a str –" It struck Nicholls how ridiculous it was to try and reason with traumatised toddlers. He looked down at Jane. Her face was still a ghastly grey colour, but her eyes were starting to open. He wished he were able to carry her up to her bed, but he doubted he was capable of even getting her onto the settee. Finally her eyes opened all the way, and she was staring at him with a puzzled look. She tried to sit up, but he kept a firm hand on her shoulder.

"I think you'd better not get up just yet, Jane."

"Who are . . . How . . . Jim? . . . Am I dead?"

"I'm so sorry, my dear, dear sweet darling. This isn't how I imagined this happening at all."

"So I _am_ dead."

"No. No, you're very much alive. As am I."

Realisation crept slowly into her eyes as she studied him. She ran her hand along the scars on the right side of his face. Her thumb wiped a tear from his eye, then she covered his right side with her whole hand so she could just see the familiar, un-ruined half of him. He grabbed her hand and held it there.

"Oh, Jim. Oh, Jim, it _is_ you!"

She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled herself up into an embrace, four years of conquered tears spilling out onto his shoulder. Rose and Jimmy ran forward to hug her from behind, and Nicholls tried as best he could to encompass all of them with his one arm.

The winter sunlight diffused through the lace curtains and reflected off the wooden floor, surrounding all of them with a lake of light. Jim and Jane held each other as the light moved around them and the shadows lengthened. Finally Jane sat back and cupped his tear-stained face in her hands.

"Four years, James Nicholls! I've been a widow twice in the time it took for you to come back to us! Why?"

"Let's just say the mail isn't as reliable as one might like."

"That _isn't_ an explanation."

"I know. Let's just say the real story will require tea - with maybe a drop of something more fortifying added-in. But I don't want to move yet. I've been wandering for so long and for once I'd prefer to be still. Here, with you."

"I know."

When they kissed, it was like the sun meeting the sky in its first sunrise after four years of night.

**THE END**

* * *

**Thanks for reading, guys! I hope you enjoyed it :-) Please leave a review if you can - I'm still newish to this whole fan-fiction thing and I really welcome any feedback you might have!**


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